T-H Marine Livewell Aerator Spray Head with Valve

If you run a livewell, you already know the whole game is oxygen. Bait and catch don't die from lack of water, they die from lack of dissolved oxygen. That's what this T-H Marine aerator spray head is for. It's the fitting that takes the water your aerator pump is pushing and breaks it up as it enters the well, so the tank stays oxygenated instead of just full. Fill a well with a plain hose and the water goes flat. Spray it in through a head like this and you keep the oxygen up where your shiners, minnows, or a limit of bass need it.

Here's how it fits into the plumbing. Your aerator pump sits low, usually in the bilge or against the well, and pushes water up a 3/4-inch hose. That hose slips onto the 3/4-inch barb on the back of this head. The head itself mounts through a 1-1/16-inch hole in the livewell wall or lid, and the fixed flange sits flush against the surface so it holds its position and seals up clean. The threaded section runs 3/8 inch, which is what you've got to work with for the nut on the back side, so this is built for a thin wall or a standard livewell panel, not a thick bulkhead.

The part that sets this version apart is the shut-off valve. A lot of aerator heads are just a fixed sprayer, on or off with the pump. This one gives you a valve right at the head so you can throttle the spray down or shut it off entirely without killing the pump. That matters more than it sounds. On a hot tournament day you might want full spray to keep dissolved oxygen high. Running two wells off one pump, you can balance flow between them. Hauling delicate bait, you can back the spray off so you're not beating them up against the jets. It's a small amount of control that changes how the well actually fishes.

Who's this for? Anybody running a factory or aftermarket livewell that needs a spray head replaced, or anyone plumbing a well from scratch, a bait tank build, a jon boat conversion, a cooler-to-livewell setup. The 3/4-inch barb is the common aerator hose size, so it drops into most standard systems without adapters. Black plastic keeps it low-key inside the well and it won't corrode the way a metal fitting would sitting in water all day.

A word on what it is and what it isn't. This is the spray head, the business end where water enters the well. It is not the pump. You still need an aerator pump feeding it and the hose to connect them. If your current head cracked, clogged, or the old shut-off seized up, this is a direct, honest replacement. If you're building a system, pair it with a properly sized aerator pump for your well volume and you're set. One head comes in the package, so if you're plumbing an inlet and a recirculation line, or two wells, order the count you need.

Installation is straightforward for anyone comfortable with basic boat plumbing. Use the existing 1-1/16-inch hole or cut a new one, slide the head through from the front, and secure it from behind. Push your 3/4-inch aerator hose onto the barb and clamp it. Because the flange is fixed, you're not fighting a spinning fitting while you tighten, which makes a one-person install a lot less aggravating. Give the shut-off valve a test cycle before you trust it, run the pump, confirm the spray pattern, and check for weeping around the flange.

T-H Marine has been making livewell and boat rigging parts for a long time, and their aerator components turn up on rigs from a lot of builders because they just work and they're easy to source. This is a commodity part in the best sense, an inexpensive, proven fitting you can keep a spare of in the console so a dead well on tournament morning is a five-minute fix instead of a ruined day.